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Obama talks to ABC News on Massachusetts Senate, health care

1. One day removed from a stunning rebuke of his party in Massachusetts, President Obama sat for an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos. The full transcript is here but in case you are too busy to read the whole thing, here's what you need to know: 1) On what happened in the special election on Tuesday: "The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office....People are angry, and they're frustrated." 2) Obama and his senior officials knew bailing out banks was "politically toxic" but believed it was necessary: "We had to salvage a financial system that could have made things much worse." 3) The attempt to overhaul health care was "something that we had to do" not "my personal hobbyhorse" but any attempt to pass a bill until Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R) is seated would be a mistake." 4) Playing the empathy card, Obama said the he, too, was "frustrated" at the lack of progress for "middle class families." 5) Obama derided the "system" in Washington, blaming the way things are done in Washington for his difficulties in tackling major problems. "The system is broken and when people, during the course of us taking on one of these problems like health care locks this process, it doesn't make them feel -- it doesn't make them feel real optimistic." 6) On the difference between his successes as a candidate and his struggles as president: "What I haven't always been successful at doing is breaking through the noise and speaking directly to the American people in a way that during the campaign you could do." 7) Obama hedged on whether he believed the House should simply pass the Senate version of the House bill: "I think it is very important for the House to make its determinations," he said before adding: "The House and the Senate bill overlap about 90 percent."

2. Close watchers of the Supreme Court seem to believe that today will be the day when the Court will decide on perhaps the most significant challenge to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) since its passage by Congress in 2002, a decision that will have wide-reaching implications for the future financing of elections. The case -- Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission -- narrowly focuses on whether or not Citizens United, a conservative group, should have been barred from running an unflattering movie about then Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) in advance of the 2008 presidential primary season. (Here's a history of the case from a legal perspective.) But the broader debate is whether corporations and labor unions should be allowed to run independent expenditure ad campaigns for and against candidates. (They are currently barred from doing so by BCRA.) "This could be one of the biggest campaign finance cases ever decided -- with millions in corporate, non-profit, union and individual dollars waiting to see how this case comes out," said Jason Torchinsky, a Republican election lawyer. "The stakes in this case -- for federal and state elections in 2010 and beyond -- could be massive." The decision -- if one indeed comes -- will be handed down by the Court shortly after it convenes at 10 a.m.

3. Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki (R) is taking a serious look at entering the GOP primary for the right to challenge embattled Sen. Harry Reid (D) in 2010 although it's far from clear whether his candidacy is being encouraged by the national party to do so. Republican sources in Washington confirmed to the Fix that Arizona Sen. John McCain (R), whose 2008 presidential campaign Krolicki chaired in 2008, called the lieutenant governor on Tuesday to urge him to make the contest. But, there is less excitement in other parts of official Republican Washington for Krolicki despite the fact that the current GOP field -- headlined by former state party chair Sue Lowden and businessman Danny Tarkanian -- is decidedly weak. Why the hesitance? Krolicki, once considered a rising star within the party, saw the reputation badly tarnished by an indictment pursued by state Attorney General Catharine Cortez Masto (D) over alleged misuse of state funds during his time as state treasurer. Krolicki long maintained that the indictment was politically motivated and was almost entirely exonerated late last year when a judge dismissed the charges. (Cortez Masto received withering treatment for her role in the case.) Krolicki has until March 12, which is the state's filing deadline, to make up his mind. Despite the fact that neither Lowden nor Tarkanian is at all well known in the state, both carried solid leads over Reid in a recent independent poll -- evidence of the Senate majority leader's vulnerability.

4. For the fourth time in the past week, the liberal Firedoglake blog will release a poll showing a conservative Democratic member of Congress in serious trouble against his Republican opponent this November. The latest survey, set to go public this morning, will show former Rep. Mike Sodrel (R) leading Rep. Baron Hill (D) 49 percent to 41 percent in the southern Indiana 9th district. Jane Hamsher, the founder of Firedoglake, has previously commissioned polls in Arkansas' 2nd district, Ohio's 1st district and New York's 1st district. Of her motivation, she explains that congressional Democrats' approach to health care has been entirely wrongheaded and insists the party establishment is "operating on the Wile E. Coyote theory of politics -- if you just keep running over the cliff and don't look down, you'll never fall." National Democratic strategists dismiss the surveys as rank fear-mongering in an attempt to pull the party to the ideological left and note that in several of the polls some of the demographic data -- most notably the percentage of voters age 18-34 -- was far lower than it is in the voters files for each state. Regardless of the methodological issues, the polls appear to be having the desired effect. On the same day the Firedoglake poll came out showing him badly trailing in his re-election race, Rep. Vic Snyder (D) announced he would not seek an eighth term. Coincidence? They don't exist in politics.

5. Want to chat with the one of the authors of "Game Change", the controversial chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign that has stoked so much conversation within the chattering class since its release on Jan. 11? Today's your lucky day; Time's Mark Halperin will spend an hour -- from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. ET-- fielding questions in a live online chat. (It's no "Live Fix" chat but you will have to wait until 11 a.m. tomorrow for that one.)

Unfortunately, based on the summary of the interview by Chris, Obama seems to persist in being in denial and true to his usual self, blames others for failures. He is no different from Clinton or Bush II in almost always refusing to accept responsibility when things go wrong.

Obama may have mostly benign intentions, but is a weak leader. He seems to lack confidence in his own judgment, therefore he defers to Pelosi, Reid, the auto unions, CIA, Sumners, Geightner, hawkish generals, his chief of staff, etc. In retrospect he was not
ready to he president and should have waited until 2012 or 2016 to be a candidate for president.

Anyway, Obama is right, the banks should have been bailed out, but there should have guarantees from the beginning that greedy, absurd bonuses would have been prohibited. He seems to be conflicted in sort of realizing a scaled back health care bill is the best way to proceed, while yearning for the House to merely pass the Senate bill, to placate his huge ego.

Obama can politically recover. After all Bush II was never ready to be president and Clinton had an overall disastrous first two years. The best step Obama could take is to go back and review his campaign promises. He should be honest with himself and realize he has broken many of them. The president should resolve to try to step back and return to his campaign promises, especially about health care and trying to reduce the influence of special interest groups.

Forget the temptation to be a fake populist as his advisors seem to recommend, just be honest, keep your promises, help pass a more reasonable health care bill that goes into effect immediately not in three or four years, and do not be subservient to special interest groups.

Thanks, JakeD and reason5, for your serious comments about health care reform. There are plenty of areas where there is bipartisan consensus on approaches. Personally, I think it might be a good time to revisit some of the provisions in Wyden/Bennett.

But this goes nowhere unless the GOP leadership is prepared to give up its reflexive opposition to BHO and the Ds. And I don't see that happening, especially since the midterm elections are near.

"To satisfy what she and other House leaders saw at the White House's preference, Pelosi has been struggling for days to sell the Senate legislation to reluctant Democrats in order to get a health-care bill to the president's desk quickly. But party moderates have raised doubts about forging ahead without bipartisan support -- a challenge as the midterm election approaches -- while liberals rejected the Senate bill as not going far enough"

"To satisfy what she and other House leaders saw at the White House's preference, Pelosi has been struggling for days to sell the Senate legislation to reluctant Democrats in order to get a health-care bill to the president's desk quickly. But party moderates have raised doubts about forging ahead without bipartisan support -- a challenge as the midterm election approaches -- while liberals rejected the Senate bill as not going far enough"

You people amaze me with your ignorance and stupidity. You're all down on Obama simply because he didn't pull some miracle out of his a** and Pfffft!--create millions of new jobs killed off because of the failure of the previous administration to pay attention to what Wall Street was up to; Pffft!--he didn't magically bring health care costs down in the measely 365 days he has been in office while Pfffft!--he didn't somehow magically pull off military victories in Iraq and Afghanistan and turn the hearts of jihadist terrorists all over the world to peace-loving Christians!

Posted by: jaxas70
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No politician quite gets a pass for deception and prevarication. Obama in his narcissism thought his sonorous rhetoric made him exempt from a “read my lips” or “I didn’t have sex with that woman” moment. It didn’t.

People heard his serial promises about airing the healthcare debate on C-SPAN, his new-transparency/no-lobbyist vows, and his monotonous boasts to close down Guantanamo within a year. All that is now “inoperative.” The problem was not just that Obama made promises that he broke, but that he made them so frequently and so vehemently — and so cavalierly broke them. That brazen campaign deception is problematic for a politician, but proves fatal for a self-appointed messiah.

Polls show that Americans have seen the future of the medical overhaul and know it won't work. Government-run, single-payer health insurance hasn't succeeded anywhere on this planet. They ask why their government is pushing solutions it must know can't work, slicing and dicing monster bills just to get something that will pass.

Perhaps it's because it's never been about health care. It's been about nationalizing one-sixth of the economy and making as many people as possible dependent on government. After all, the idea of a health care overhaul began with a lament about the uninsured, whose numbers changed with the political wind, and ended with a 2,000-page, $2.5 trillion hash that would leave millions uninsured.

We were never told why exactly the finest health care delivery system in the world had to be destroyed to insure those who choose not to buy coverage or can't afford it. What about lowering insurance costs by letting people buy plans across state lines? University of Minnesota economists showed that interstate insurance sales could cover an additional 12 million Americans.

Mandates on insurance plans also increase costs, and the average state imposes 38 mandates, according to the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon . These mandates have made private insurance too expensive for many. The Congressional Budget Office says state regulations boost premium costs by 15%.

There are simpler ways to deal with health care issues than through the Democrats' proposals. We could use health savings accounts to provide portability between jobs and create a financial incentive to stay healthy. We could enact real tort reform as some states have done, in the knowledge that lawsuits cure no one.

The timetable to reach a global deal to tackle climate change lay in tatters on Wednesday after the United Nations waived the first deadline of the process laid out at last month’s fractious Copenhagen summit.

I think we all know the value of an Obama promise or deadline by now. ZERO.

Brown has won and killed the current healthcare bill. That doesn't mean that the thought of healthcare reform is over. I think if Obama sits down with Republicans and constructs a real healthcare reform bill, the nation could be better off. Obama has worked so hard on it, now is the time. Not just to try and get Snowe & Collins to vote for it, but to get real reform though. Real reform in my mind covers: cost containment, preventive medicine, tort reform & increased competition. A combination of these items can be addressed & worked out. A good start would be do it a bit at a time. If Democrats truly want bi-partisan reform, why not first pass the Coburn/Burr wellness act? It deals greatly in dealing with tort reform & preventive medicine. Cost containment would be the big thing to add in this bill. Now that Brown has won, this is the end of the public option & socialized medicine. This doesn't have to be the end of healthcare reform, this could be the beginning of real healthcare reform.

If the American people want to move right, I say let them. Look. The people in Mass think they were simply making a statement but the truth is that electing people for just that reason never ever gets you anywhere.

Let me give you an example: George W. Bush changed the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court when he successfully appointed two conservative justices to the court--John Robers and Sam Alito. It was a conservative republican President and a conservative republican Congress who achieved this. Well, moments ago the nation heard the news that the Supreme Court just rolled back campaign finance laws and now the corporations have an even less restricted, near unlimited access to our governing officials. I suspect that K Street and the special interests lobbies are giddy and in a celebratory mood.

Now you may well ask how this could happen when every politician in both parties has been out on the hustings condemning K street lobbyists and special interests in their campaigns. And my response is: You voted for it! Just like you voted for a guy who just took old Ted Kennedy's seat ewho is opposed to health care reform and banking and finance regulations.

Congratulations dumba** American voters. You just can't help yourselves can you? You just keep voting for your own worst enemies. You deserve everything you are going to get.

Let me put this in perspective for all of you tea bag sucking morons out there. Some dumba** wit in the mainstream media said that Barack Obama's big mistake was in thinking that the American voter was a Daily Kos reader. Now think about that for a minute: The Daily Kos wanted a single payer system but would settle for a public option (which BTW was precisely what a majority of the public wanted); Daily Kos wanted a complete withdrawal of American troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan; Daly Kos wanted an investigation of the criminal and corrupt activities of the previous administration; Daily Kos wanted a massive government intervention in banking and finance designed to force the banks to make good on their promise to use TARP funds to stimulate small business loans and jobs; Daily Kos wanted a far larger stimulus program and is calling for a second stimulus to invest in new modernized infrastructure; Daily Kos wanted a far more forceful policy on cimate change; Daily Kos wanted to seriously regulate banking and finance and restrict these insane compensation packages they gave their top executives.

Now you tell me, how many of those things did Barack Obama forcefully support? No. His mistake wasn't listening to Daily Kos. His mistake was falling asleep while the Tea Party goons and bigots used the mainstream media to define him downward. His mistake was turning health care reform over to the most devout defenders of the status quo in his own party. His mistake was in letting the mainstream media take dictation from Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Fox News without mobilizing his own left wing activists to get out and counter this rotten red meat bunch!

The left needs to mobilize. Get down and dirty just like that crap smelling bunch does. The left needs to begin its own smear campaign agsint the conservatives and believe me you don't have to dig very deep to see what these Nazis stand for!

You people amaze me with your ignorance and stupidity. You're all down on Obama simply because he didn't pull some miracle out of his a** and Pfffft!--create millions of new jobs killed off because of the failure of the previous administration to pay attention to what Wall Street was up to; Pffft!--he didn't magically bring health care costs down in the measely 365 days he has been in office while Pfffft!--he didn't somehow magically pull off military victories in Iraq and Afghanistan and turn the hearts of jihadist terrorists all over the world to peace-loving Christians!

What in the hell is with you people. Barack Obama didn't suddenly create this mess the minute he came into office. You all make me sick! You're nothing but a bunch of miserable, ignorant, give-me-that-old-time-religion hicks who never read a freaking book in your lives, sit around whacking off the the incomprehensible ravings of right wing lunatics like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and will end up putting morons in office whose idea of governing is remove the wealthy of the burdens of paying taxes while turning America's future over to the very Wall Street thugs who built this crap sandwich for us in the first place.

Go right ahead. Put the republicans back in office. I guarantee you that a few years from now you will be right back in the same outhouse pit they dug for you under the previous administration! Go ahead morons! Do it! Put into power the most ignorant, uneducated rattlebrained nudniks ever to stink up the American electorate.

In my estimation, you deserve precisely what you are going to get. There is a reason the big insurance companies are high fiveing and raising their champagne glasses in the air these days. And the bankers are chortling as they sit on your money because they know that once the GOP is safely ensconced back in power, they are home free and can go back to business as usual!

Congratulations Mass voters! You just crapped in your own bed. Now, lie in it.

so how come CC hasn't commented on Ensign being under investigation by the FBI? If indicted, what are the rules in his state about a sitting US senator being under indictment and serving? Would there need to be a special election? Doesn't this taint the chances of Reid losing his seat by the very fact that he hasn't had a sex scandal, a la Ensign? Why hasn't the host brought up this situation and all possible outcomes? We constantly read of Democrats so-called woes, yet no mention of this one of a GOPer. And why hasn't Chris mentioned GOP congressman Nathan Deal sending a letter to the WH, like he promised he would in November, demanding to see Obama's BC? Don't the people need to see that there are actual elected officials buying into this ridiculous premise? It was "Democratic woes" when one or two Dems announce retirement, yet at the same time 14 GOPers are retiring. All the fuss about Reid's comment when there is a men's 12 team basketball league starting in the US, where only born-in-the-US players with born-in-the-US fully caucasian parents are allowed to play as reported by a Canadian sports network. Are the Canucks wrong about this league? Is this really what the country is about?

Obama claimed to get it on ABC, but he still doesn't really get it. It just not jobs, jobs, jobs! It's the turkey healthcare bill he let Pelosi and Reid put together. It's his tripling of the federal deficit! It's his failure to lead by proposing legislation and guiding Congress to produce reasonable bills. It's the $700 billion stimulus that was mostly wasted spending and political payoffs It's his failure to be truly bipartisan as he promised! And it is certainly not Geroge Bush's fault. Not this time. The White House is too busy spinning to learn anything. Get clue a Obama.

I wanna say, I'm feeling pretty negative today. So Jake, you might actually like some of my thoughts today.
First Martha Coakley is an idiot. In all his time in that senate seat, Edward Kennedy never had a close election, but not once did he take his voters for granted. He knocked doors, walked in parades (even when it was excruciating for him with his back problems) he did town halls. Whatever one may think of his politics, or believe about Chapaquidick, there is no case to be made that he was not a man of the people.
So when Coakley quoted Senator Kennedy in her concession speech, my blood boiled at a temperature i havent reached since I heard about John Edwards post Elisabeth plans. Coakly went on vacation when she should have been reaching out to the people. I don't care that she didn't know who Curt Shilling is. But she had no right to ask for Edward M. Kennedys Senate seat, if she wasn't willing to work as hard as he did to get it. I hope this is the end of her career in public service. (not personally but) I knew Edward M. Kennedy Maam. You are NO Edward M. Kennedy.

#1, Now that the Dems have conceded they will wait for Scott Brown to be seated to be part of the process, perhaps we will finally get the bi-partisan bill that Obama promised. Who better to bring a fresh perspective than one of the lone Republicans who voted for Romneycare, who has seen it actually implemented and knows what works / doesn't work? But this time it has to ALL (including any conference committee negotiations) be broadcast on C-SPAN.

We already have a good starting point. But, we need to make it comprehensive with no special deals for unions or Nebraska. No coverage for illegal aliens means there has to be some way to distinguish between eligible participants and those who will be deported, keeping in mind all applicable judicial decisions in that regard. No federal funds for abortion / guaranteed protections for ER workers who object to abortion on moral grounds (yes, AG Coakley, I'm looking at you). Tort reform and guarantees that free market healthcare insurance survives, perhaps by allowing competition across State lines, short of turning every insurance company non-profit. Then we can talk about the best ways to address cost controls, recission, pre-existing conditions, portability, etc.

#4, If the GOP runs Sodrel against Hill again, it's a mistake. It will be close, and could go either way, but Sodrel is starting to look like a petty jerk who just wants the job so the other guy doesn't get it. Sodrel loaths Hill. If the Republican Party wants to win that seat, they should run Todd Young who has been campaigning since about November 5, 2008. He's young, charismatic, and really good at deliving a fake populist message. Until last fall, this was my district. I know what the polls say, but I'm telling you, if Sodrel doesn't bloody Young in a primary, Hill loses big.